Is there really a trucker shortage?

Nope. Not that I see.

There's a driver retention shortage (most new cdl holders dont make it past 3 months before qutting). Oh and don't forget the pay shortage. No one wants to pay drivers what they deserve for giving up their lives to live at their workstation 24/7.

There's also a warehouse worker and dock worker shortage.. which adds to supply chain problems and driver detention/layovers that cause many drivers to eventually give up trying. There is also a new parts and new equipment shortage.. there's an infrastructure and parking shortage (which really is just a shortage of people who care about the quality of life truckers endure- But thosr same people sure do love to complain about empty store shelves and high prices!)

 

No such thing as “shortages” in a free country. Americans are free to do as they wish , which includes say no thank you to truck driving jobs.

 

Who in the world wants to work 60-70 hours a week? There is a shortage of people that don't want 30 hours of overtime every week, and that's what corporate America trucking companies want. But they don't want to pay overtime for those 20-30 hours so they pay them by the mile to avoid that.

Just think, if your married you'll hardly ever see your wife and kids much.
And if your single you'll never meet anyone that wants to date once every 7-14 days or more out on the road.

 

∆ This! Times a thousand...

I got my CDL 12 years ago. My first CDL job was for Conway LTL. I hated it, but pulled some time there regardless as I wasn't crazy about going OTR. I eventually changed gears and drove Charter Buses (and local university transit during slow downs), until I mostly stopped driving for work and started a business.... That COVID-19 killed.

Fast forward to the current pandemic where I decide to jump back in a truck to ride out COVID-19 in. I applied to a few LTL companies (and surprisingly was offered every job I applied for - XPO, R+L, ODFL, considering I had a lengthy absence from legit driving time). I'm a couple of months into my return to driving and plan on resigning this week. I make around $235 a night at R+L working from 10pm - 7 am (as late as 730 or 8 on occasion) with an unpaid pause in the middle while I wait to hook my return Linehaul set.

I don't get paid to hook, for traffic jams, for anything that isn't"built in to the run.". I'm also not willing to work 14 hours a day at another company, 5 nights a week, so my LTL return is short lived.

I'm planning on taking a local class B job that runs a 4 day work week (10 hour days). They start around $24/hour with a decent sign on bonus. Add in a local charter bus company paying $400/day on one of my days off and I'll clear a little more money with a lot less BS that seems to be inherent in trucking.

I know a ton of CDL holders not working CDL jobs because very few of them (if any) exist that don't ask you to literally give up your life, save for a few hours to reset your clock, for pay that really only ranges up so far (and not nearly far enough to give your entire existence for).

 

As I've said before, I think this supply chain crunch is an orchestrated event. I was all set to fly back to Phoenix in July from Asia to work for Knight again. The day before the flight they decided to pass on my application, they didn't even run the normal reports on a prospective driver that one has to sign and consent to. Bear in mind that I have a clean CDL and and operations wanted me back, but the safety dept. decided to pass on me for some unspecified reason. I've worked for them at least 5 or 6 times in the past, so it's very suspicious to me why a company would not want any experienced reefer driver who knows the system at Knight?

I've seen some of the drivers they have hired lately and I thought they were desperate, as the quality is not there. I remember going into the Phoenix yard last year and walking from the parking lot to the drivers lounge and seeing a reefer trailer hooked up to a tractor at the warehouse loading dock, the landing gear was collapsed backwards! They are having problems with drivers damaging equipment, or so that was my observation at the time. Lots of red tagged reefers as well! I don't know what's going on there now. I may apply to them next year again, just for laughs to see what happens. Or maybe I'll never fly again because I'm not taking the clot shot. Just ranting a bit, cheers!

 

Driver shortage= get rid of the ELDregs, but keep them on just get rid of the rules.
Make it common sense such as if u have been driving for 20 hrs straight and get pulled bc your driving bad? Maybe pull your CDL for a bit bc at that point your dangerous and you know it. That should be enough to scare most away from that sort of thing.
But first the late fees and broker fees must be fixed bc that could be a big reason for driving tired or sick. As long as they hold the power and no responsibility they will push companies to get loads delivered which can help cause a wreck.
Get rid of governed trucks(for most keep it with the Megas they need it)
Get rid of cameras and sensors and whatever else they have on these trucks nowadays. Install them on the truck, let the driver choose if he wants to use them. If you think a driver needs them, that driver shouldn’t be driving. It should be a perk not a requirement.
Home time will be less of an issue if there are no ELD regs. But as it stands, I’m 3 hrs away from home on Friday and out of time, I gotta stop and take my break. There are times that’s great, I’m glad I don’t have to go home, I can get some sleep I’m tired. But that should be a choice cause there’s been times it’s like 11 AM and I’m pissed bc I just wasted a lot of time that I could of had at home. This should be a choice.
Next up is forced dispatch, nothing NE should be forced period. Unless your company has a terminal up there and a place to park with a shower.
And last pay- I’m currently unemployed bc the guy I was working for shut the company down last month. I was hauling fuel. I’m probably going to go back to van. But the pay for this job is BS. Always has been. I can’t control my paycheck. It depends on about 11 different variables. The load, traffic, weather, Reciving and shipping, ELD, Truck and Trailer, parking, tolls, time of day due to parking shortage, delivery and pick up times, and lastly the great DOT. All that is the reason for a shortage if there is one. Get rid of these problems and we will see safer roads and happier drivers.(And maybe cheaper insurance rates but probably not)

 

The only shortage is drivers that will work for sub standard wages and no benefits..

 

There seems to be no shortage of people willing to give it a try. I am sure some are good folks, others not so good

I think there's some problems with the way things are being done. Some new problems being added, not enough being resolved. I'm not an expert, haven't been on the road very long but a few years.

We can be smarter about the way we are managing things, in my opinion. When I caught covid I missed a month of pay, yes a full month. I was only really sick for about 3 days, then lingering symptoms for a week. But I missed a full month of pay. When I said I was ready to drive again, they didn't believe me. Or they didn't care, they had some company policy to follow.

A lot of them will quit, always in this line of work, of course. But if you want to keep the people that want to work, let them drive. Let them thrive.

When a driver has a history of safe driving, and he is honest with you about becoming sick and he needs to stop for a few days... also trust him when he tells you he is well and ready to drive again. Don't conduct some investigation that includes another physical. Just trust him and let him work. He has a safe record after all, right? Trust your drivers. Let them work.

Apparently there are drivers dying in their truck and that's why all of the extra precautions. But that's not me. I am fine. All I know is I am out a lot of money and it didn't need to happen. It will not happen again.

 

I dont think reducing the age from 21 to 18 will cure the problem either. Teenagers will do what everyone else does, drive for a few months and then quit. If they can do the job well then welcome aboard. But I don't think it will be enough by a long shot.

The problem is not pay. We are paid well (company drivers, not OO I don't know about that). It's just hard to drive sometimes. One time I was off duty for 14 hours waiting for my recaps and then I got my time back. I drove 2 hours to complete my drop. Then I was told to take another 10 then do an overnight Tyson run across the border. I called dispatch twice, I had been sleeping most of my 14 hour break, getting ready to work again. I can't sleep now, I am wide awake and ready to work. I am not ready to work tonight, I am ready now in the early AM. They surprised me because my other dispatch loading at the same place was canceled and I guess that's all they had.

That's fine. But it caught me off guard and I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't told until after I slept. I get that stuff happens, its just hard even for me and I've been at this a little while. It's harder still for new guys. I tried to sleep again, but of course that didn't happen. I got it done, but I definitely got tired. lol

I don't mind driving overnight at all. But don't surprise me like that. Tell me ahead what's coming up. Next time? No, probably not.

It's not the pay, what can you drive? At my pay if I drove 600 miles a day, which I can do easily, that's $400 a day. Which is excellent. In a perfect world, I'd drive that every day. But it's not a perfect world. I average maybe 300. I want 600 though.

 

Many of you are drivers, don’t have a clue about reality in this industry.

Not to be an ****** hole but there is a lot more to a driver shortage campaign that is ever discussed.

Right now drivers are making money they deserve, most drivers are not worked hard, they drive trucks that are like driving pickup trucks but because you run against an eld or you see all these regulations stifling YOU, you think this is the problem for everyone when it isn’t.

A lot of owners of small fleets have drivers working, those owner operators are working but the megas are not, which means the problem isn’t a drivers shortage for the industry. Just see what the port wait time is … hours.

the following quote is what is exactly happening, these large companies are screaming they don’t have enough drivers, they want to capture the revenue, the Pennies, at any cost, it is ALL ABOUT COVERAGE OF AREAS.